


The Haunting of Carmilla Karnstein

by basilique



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types, Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gothic, Haunting, Hurts So Good, I'm Sorry, Lesbian Vampires, Letters, POV Original Character, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Sacrifice, Sad, Self-Sacrifice, Short Chapters, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basilique/pseuds/basilique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla laid down and curled up beside my lady, their heads on one pillow and their eyes upon each other. “Rest, dearest.” </p><p>As my lady’s breathing deepened into a most blissful rhythm, Carmilla gazed upon her, her large dark eyes full of wonder, and she whimpered a little and clutched a hand to her own heart. “Laura, Laura, Laura.”</p><p>When her rapture had finally settled, and she had fallen asleep beside my lady, I got shakily to my feet, my poor old knees aching. As I crept back to my own room, my heart pounded high with all that I had seen. For surely there could be no doubt that this inexplicable girl was the very Carmilla who had crawled into my mistress’ bed a lifetime ago, laid down beside her, and bit her upon the breast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Desperate Missive

> "The following Spring my father took me a on tour through Italy. We remained away for more than a year. It was long before the terror of recent events subsided; and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous alternations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door." - _Carmilla_ , by J. Sheridan LeFanu 

My Dear Doctor Hesselius, 

It is my dearest hope that you will be able to believe me when I outline for you the unnatural events that I have been witness to over the last several weeks. I do hope that the contents of this letter will not disturb you, and that you will observe the truth of my story, although it may sound like the ravings of a mad old man. 

It is with grief that I must inform you of the passing of my most kindly mistress, Mme. Laura Hollis, at the venerable age of ninety-nine. However it is not only to make you aware of my lady’s passing that I write, but also to recount to you the strange and unsettling circumstances which preceded it. I have read your recent interview with my lady, in which she recounted to you the weird experiences of her childhood and youth, her brief encounter with the supernatural, which forever changed my lady’s perspective. 

I find it most urgent that I communicate with you now, so that you may inform the world of what has happened; in these final weeks of her life, Mme. Hollis encountered once again that same fiend that preyed upon her in her girlhood. 

Yes, dear sir, Carmilla Karnstein is alive—if you can call her shadowy non-existence a life. She is not destroyed, as my lady’s father M. Hollis and his friends once believed. They thought to have rid the world of her menace, but the creature is somehow returned to walk the earth once more. And of all the places that she might have gone, she returned to our humble schloss after all these long years, to bring torment to my poor lady in her final hours. 

Doctor, you must warn the country of the re-appearance of Carmilla Karnstein. It would seem that she is as immortal as an idea. All good people must be warned so that they may take action to defend their daughters. If you have a daughter, my dear sir, then you must pray that her charms do not attract this fiend’s attention. 

In any case, I shall now describe to you the events of the past several weeks, which have left me shaken and befuddled. I can only hope that the writing may help me to make sense of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters of Carmilla and Laura are sortof a hybrid their web series personalities and the personalities LeFanu gave them. Carmilla is much closer to LeFanu's character, but I gave 19th century Laura the righteousness of that tiny gay we all know and love ;D. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions!


	2. Moonlit Skin

Before the appearance of the fiend, my lady had fallen ill with a nasty cough and a deep fatigue. She had been sleeping through much of the daylight hours for some weeks. I was deeply concerned for her, for my good mistress was elderly, and her deteriorating health left me fearing the worst. I attended to her perhaps to excess, rarely leaving her alone. I sometimes sat up nights by her bedside, listening to her labored breaths to ensure that her lungs continued to fight against her illness. 

But one night, as the grandfather clock downstairs struck eleven, I found myself so fatigued that I could not resist but to turn in. I vacated my rocking chair beside my lady’s head, and I had just nearly closed the bedroom door behind me, when I suddenly became aware of a presence in the dark bedroom that I had just vacated. 

My hair stood on end, and an odd prickle danced up my back. I had already set the door in motion, but just before it clicked shut I saw an odd flash, as though of pale, moonlit skin. 

My heart set to an unsettled pounding and all my nerves seemed to rise up with fear. It was not possible, of course, that another person could have entered my lady’s bedroom in the moments of my departure. The room had no closet, no wardrobe in which an intruder could hide. And the basking of the mastiffs at our gates informed us of visitors at any hour of the day or night. 

A primal fear prompted me to flee with my lantern back to my own bed, but concern for my lady’s safety drove me to plant my feet, and with a shaking hand, to throw open the door again, my lantern held high. 

There was no one in the room, of course, save for my lady, who murmured in her sleep. But after a moment of scanning the room, all my senses peaked, I caught a whiff of a new odor, a scent like the smoke of fires in our ancient Styrian forests. It is a smell that once encountered is not easily forgotten. I smell it now, as I think back on these events.


	3. The Missing Girls

I said nothing of it to my lady the next day, setting the night’s events down to my tired imagination, at that late hour. However, I could not help but sit up at my lady’s side again the next night, and several nights subsequently, my ears measuring—not only Mme.’s breathing—but the sounds of the house. It is amazing what sounds a house can make at night, when one strains to hear them, alone in the darkness. I heard creaks of the weathervane upon the roof, inexplicable groans from the wood of the walls, the scurrying of mice, and once, what sounded almost to be a stifled cry, followed by a thud, from the cellar. 

Still recounting none of this to Mme. Hollis, lest she should worry for my sanity, I took to sleeping in the daytime. And so it was with great confusion that I awoke one afternoon to the baying of the mastiffs at the front gate. I struggled out of sleep, bewildered, for we had not had a visitor in several years. My lady had never married, had borne no children, and as far as we knew, had no family left but a few distant cousins. I could not imagine what could have brought a guest through the lonely countryside to the gates of our schloss. 

I hurried down the path to the front gate, and met there a servant from a manor-house nearby, a woman with great dark circles under her eyes, and her graying hair flying askew under her hat. She had a kind and intelligent face, but it was strained with a most ardent anxiety, and she forbade formal introductions, clutching me by my hands as soon as I had opened the gates for her. “I must speak with you, sir, and any other able-bodied people in your household. Please, the matter is urgent.” 

I urged her to come inside and poured her a cup of tea, concerned for her distress, but glad of her company. We who live in the secluded countryside take our greatest pleasure in entertaining guests. 

The woman ran her work-calloused hands one-over-the-other as she spoke, seated at the table, once I had set a cup of tea in front of her. 

“I am sorry to intrude upon your peace in such a state, and bearing such unhappy news,” she said. “But you see, the plight of my master and mistress’ household is desperate. I serve a manor some leagues to the North, as secluded as your own.” 

I learned later that the courageous woman had made the journey to our manor house alone and on foot. She nobly withheld this information, speaking through her exhaustion the reason of her visit, her hands clamped tightly around her cup of tea. 

“The joy of my life for years,” she said, “has been the gaiety of my master’s twin daughters, Collette and Cerise. Just twenty years of age, they were the most endearing girls—full of youth. But last week, my darling Miss Collette was murdered-we know not by whom. I will not describe to you the horror of the scene, nor the shock and pain that shook our household. But the fact is, sir, that her beloved sister, Miss Cerise, went missing the very next day, apparently taken from her bed. 

“I fear the worst: that Collette’s murderer, perhaps harboring some grudge against the family, has murdered the poor child, and hidden her body somewhere in these woods. I have come to beg of you and yours, sir, that you join our search party, and aid me in my efforts to recover the young girl. My master and mistress are too beset with grief to be of help, but I have managed to rally a group of people from the surrounding region to search. If the girl is alive—I scarce dare hope it—then she must be rescued. And if she has gone on, so long before her time, then her body must be recovered for a proper Christian burial, and we must pray to God for her peace from this murdering monster--” 

The woman’s voice broke, and I consoled her as best I could through her tears. I assured her that I would do everything within my power to help recover her missing girl, whether her spirit was in this world or the next. Then, deeply unsettled, I offered the visitor my room for the night, and set up my watchful station beside Mme. Hollis’s bed, full of more anxiety and foreboding than ever.


	4. The Restless Undead

It was not until three days later that I saw the creature. 

Following the departure of my distressed guest, I had joined the search party, and so I spent the bulk of my daylight hours scouring the woods for the body of poor Miss Cerise. Finding nothing, I returned each evening in time to prepare dinner for myself and my lady. 

I had been hesitant to leave my lady alone in the house for these periods, due to her fragile condition, but she insisted that I join the search, and would entertain no other ideas. The news of the murder and the victim’s missing sister had most upset her. 

“I will join the search myself,” she said bravely, attempting to prop herself up on her pillows. 

Her poor arms gave way and she fell back in a violent fit of coughing. 

“Madam, I beg you,” said I quickly, “do not attempt to do so. Stay here and rest, and leave these sorry expeditions to the able-bodied.” Then, knowing she would ignore my entreaties, (I knew my mistress well), I added, “The truth is, my lady, that in your condition, you would be more hindrance to the party than help.” 

This sad fact dissuaded her, as I had known it would, and she was silent for a long moment before she looked at me, her brow furrowed with that innocent concern which she has kept all her life. 

“Is it not odd, LeSalle,” she said thoughtfully, “how one can live a long life dreaming of, and fighting for, justice. Fairness and security for all people. And yet, one grows old, and one realizes that the universe, in all its time and space, has absolutely no concern for justice. Death takes us all long before we have a chance to see the world as we have dreamed it. Is not that…strange, LeSalle? Think, for a moment, how many millions have died, and left the world forever, never having seen it as their deepest hearts longed for it to be.” 

I attempted as best I could to console my mistress, and urged her to think no more of these sad thoughts, and to put the case of the missing girl from her mind for a time, so as to rest. 

Rest, however, quite eluded me that night. As I lay in my bed, I was caught between the worlds of sleep and waking, and in dreams that seemed half real I saw visions of empty graves, entire empty cemeteries. I saw landscapes, bucolic and urban, forested and bare, full of spirits. The restless undead searched, and _searched_ , until mercifully, the clanging of the grandfather clock sounding midnight startled me from my reverie. 

Quite abandoning all hope of restful sleep, I arose and took my lantern to check upon my lady’s breathing. 

However, upon the top of the landing, I froze as a statue to hear _voices_ coming from my lady’s room. 

“Carmilla,” my lady breathed, and her voice was as I had never heard it before. “I did not think that I would ever see you again.”


	5. A Sweet Disturbance

> "She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, 'Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die-die, sweetly die- into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.'" -J. Sheridan LeFanu, "Carmilla"

Sir, it is at this point that my tale transitions from the realm of the possible to the realm of the incredible. I can only hope that you will not think me mad when I describe the events of that late night and the days that followed. I myself, at moments, have trouble believing what my eyes saw. Were it not for an angry red mark upon my cheek, which I obtained by the hand of the fiend herself, I would doubt my own sanity. 

As I stood on the landing, frozen with shock to hear my mistress speak to another person in her chamber, I heard a light footstep from within. “Carmilla” was approaching my mistress’ bed. 

“I am sorry to have taken so long,” spoke a sweet, young voice. I stared at the wall in front of me, my eyes wide. There could be no doubt that my lady had a visitor. 

There was a long silence from within. Then Mme. Hollis spoke again. “Why have you come back?” 

“You know the answer to that, my dearest.” 

I extinguished my lantern, so as not to give myself away, and crouched down before the door. I put my eye to the keyhole. I could smell, faintly, that scent of smoke that I had smelled in my lady’s chamber before. After a few moments, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out the form of the visitor. She was no older than nineteen or twenty, and the loveliest creature that I had ever seen. Her pretty figure was framed by her thick hair of a rich, golden-tinted brown, which fell in lustrous waves all about her high cheekbones, her proud collarbones, her graceful arms, her slim waist. I could attempt, but I think it would be in vain, to describe to you the character of her face. In her straight, dark eyebrows and chiseled lips there was what can only be described as innocent cruelty or sweet maliciousness. 

She sank down upon the bed, and her little white hand reached for my lady’s cheek. 

“How you have changed, Laura,” she breathed. 

My lady let out a little laugh. “Why yes,” she said. “It has been eighty years.” 

Carmilla lifted my lady’s head into her lap, and my lady happily let her do so. She closed her eyes and sighed as Carmilla began to run her fingers through the silver hair. 

They stayed this way for a long time, Carmilla running her fingers through my mistress’ hair, and gazing down at her as you or I might regard a much-loved childhood toy that we had thought lost, never to see again. “What a life you must have lived,” she said with wonder. “You must tell me all of it, tell me in great detail. But not now, for we have urgent matters to discuss. But we shall have all the time in the world, soon enough.” She smiled, and dimples appeared on her cheeks. 

“All the time in the world?” Her eyebrows drew together a little and she turned to look up at Carmilla. “Whatever can you mean? I am old and ill, Carmilla, and I think that I have weeks to live at most.” 

“That is why I have come not a moment too soon,” said Carmilla, and suppressed excitement began to show itself in her voice and countenance. “Oh Laura, it has taken so many years. Not such a very long time for me, but an entire lifetime for you—I was so afraid that I would be too late! But now all is very nearly ready. It will take me only a few more days to prepare, and then—oh, shall I tell you?” 

“Yes!” my lady sat up, almost without difficulty. Carmilla’s excitement seemed to have infected her. She clasped Carmilla’s hands in hers, rapturous as a young girl. “Yes, for mercy’s sake, tell me!” 

Carmilla swung her legs beneath her and sat up on her knees, clasping my lady’s hands. She dropped her voice to a low whisper, as though she were sharing a schoolyard secret. “I mean to restore you to your youth,” she said. “And not just a second spring, my dearest, but eternal youth. I know how to do it. And though I have never yet attempted it, I am sure that I will have everything in place to succeed.” 

A cold draft from the hallway swept against my back, and I shuddered. 

My mistress stared at Carmilla with eyes wide, apparently too stunned to speak. 

Carmilla relinquished my lady’s hands and reached instead for her cheeks, which she held. “I remember it as if it were yesterday,” she said pensively, cocking her head a little as she surveyed my lady. “That honey-gold hair, that downy soft skin, that sweet flush in your cheeks when you thought I was talking madness…” My lady shook her head a little and looked down, and I thought I saw the very flush that Carmilla referred to. Carmilla went on, undaunted, with a wicked little smile. “Your breath on my cheek, the pulse of your blood and the rise of your chest when you slept beside me, those angel’s lips on my shoulders…” 

My lady smacked her, playfully, on the cheek. “Don’t. I’m an old woman. It’s not decent.” 

“Well, I’m a good deal older than you are, dear,” Carmilla teased back, and they both fell into giggles. When they had caught their breath again, my lady coughed a little, and Carmilla quickly wrapped an arm around her and laid her back onto the pillows. 

“Do not question me any more tonight,” she said, “I will explain all when the time is right. But for now, dearest, you ought to rest.” 

“Don’t go.” 

“I won’t.” Carmilla laid down and curled up beside my lady, their heads on one pillow and their eyes upon each other. “Rest, dearest.” My lady closed her eyes obediently, but Carmilla kept her own open, gazing upon her face. “You and I will see all that is left in this universe to see,” she whispered, so quietly that I almost could not hear her. “We can walk arm in arm and watch the sun set on kingdoms, dictatorships, democracies. One day, when the world has burned away, we can see the wonders of the stars. We can stand hand in hand and survey the dark universe…” 

She continued to murmur so as my lady passed into sleep, and for some minutes longer. She could not seem to contain her joy. As my lady’s breathing deepened into a most blissful rhythm, Carmilla gazed upon her, her large dark eyes full of wonder, and she whimpered a little and clutched a hand to her own heart. “Laura, Laura, Laura.” 

When her rapture had finally settled, and she had fallen asleep beside my lady, I got shakily to my feet, my poor old knees aching. As I crept back to my own room, my heart pounded high with all that I had seen. For surely there could be no doubt that this inexplicable girl was the very Carmilla who had crawled into my mistress’ bed a lifetime ago, laid down beside her, and bit her upon the breast.


	6. Appearances

I must confess to you, I hoped with a most un-Christian hope that Carmilla’s effort to grant my lady eternal youth would be successful. For my lady’s health was on a rapid decline, and she shook and sweated with a fever the day after Carmilla’s nocturnal visit, and onward into the weekend. I could not think of any person more deserving of eternal youth than Mme. Laura Hollis. But it was clear that her days left upon this earth were precious few, unless Carmilla put her plan into rapid action. 

I think, sir, that my lady was afraid of death. But she would never have told me so, nor any other soul. 

Likewise, she did not tell me of Carmilla’s visitation, and I did not let on that I had witnessed it. I was at this point quite taken-in by the lovely creature; her sweetness, grace, and charm, and her clear devotion to my mistress. I thought it safe to go on Saturday and Sunday to join the party searching the woods for Miss Cerise. Despite the fact that my lady was poorly, she coaxed and urged me to go and join the search, as she could not, and insisted that she would be quite alright on her own. I had many misgivings about leaving her so, and perhaps I would not have done so under ordinary circumstances. But I had a feeling in my gut that my lady’s life and longevity was Carmilla’s monomaniacal fixation, and that the supernatural creature would protect her in my absence, even from death itself. 

And so I joined the search party of my new friend Mistress Boesch, the servant who had come to our schloss in desperation to tell us of Miss Cerise’s disappearance. We were around twenty in number on Saturday, and near thirty on Sunday, having been joined by some of the local clergy, who by now had heard of the girl’s disappearance and considered it their Christian duty to aid our search. Even with such numbers, however, our efforts were in vain on Saturday. We could not find so much as a strand of a girl’s hair, or a ribbon from her dress. By Sunday evening, we were vexed almost to the point of despair. And our spirits were not lightened in the slightest when the clouds opened, and we were caught in a sudden rainstorm. 

The forest canopy above us was of little protection, and at once I offered our schloss as the nearest haven, and shepherded the disgruntled searchers thence. 

I thought that sure there was enough tea in my cupboards to warm my shivering companions, and room enough in the drawing room to pack them all, but my plans were interrupted. 

At the front step, as I fumbled for the correct key, my hands a little slowed by the cold, the door burst open, and my lady launched herself at me. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead, and her frail body felt very hot as I caught her. She was winded, and wearing her dressing gown; she must have dragged herself all the way down from her bedchamber on the third floor, despite her cruel fever. 

“Madam!” I cried, alarmed. 

“LeSalle, thank goodness” she gasped, and stifled a cough long enough to cry out, “did you hear it?” 

“What noise, my lady?” I hustled her backwards quickly into the threshold to keep her out of the rain. 

She thumped her chest to repress her cough, and gasped out, “a scream. A girl’s scream. Quickly stifled. Who can it be but Cerise? She is here, somewhere on the grounds!” I heard gasps from behind me, and the searchers spun to look at one another, their eyes wide. “Go quickly!” said my lady, and they needed no further urging, but charged back into the heavy rain. I went too, with a jolt of excitement, wiping water from my brow as I scanned this way and that. A premature night seemed to have fallen in the tempest. The downpour was so thick that it all-but-swallowed my cries of, “Miss Cerise?!” 

I did not realize in my excitement that my lady too had run out to join the search, protected from the elements by nothing but her dressing gown. It was by pure fortune that she and I wandered near enough to one another that I spotted her tiny form through the rain. She slipped upon the grass, and fell to her hands and knees, but before I could dart forward to assist her, another took my place. 

A figure, seeming to materialize from nothing, swept over my lady, wrapped her in the ends of its long black cloak, and lifted her like a child. The figure’s hood fell back, and rich dark hair tumbled down its back; I recognized Carmilla with wonder. She lifted and held my lady with a great strength which her slender arms belied, and turned back toward the schloss. She swept across the grounds quickly, as though she hovered more than walked, carrying my lady with her, and for the moment my attention was quite diverted from the wild search for Miss Cerise. 

I followed Carmilla across the grounds, trusting the rain to obscure me, and keeping a cautious distance.


	7. The Cellar of the Schloss

> “Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.” – _Carmilla_ , by J. Sheridan LeFanu. 

Carmilla carried my mistress across the threshold of the schloss, and catching them up, I slipped in after them, as quietly as I could. 

“Darling, whatever were you thinking?” I heard Carmilla chide. She had carried my lady around the corner, into the hallway. “This cold is surely too much for your little lungs, which are straining so hard to keep you alive. We must act quickly, darling. We must act at once.” 

I heard a click; Carmilla had unlatched the door to the cellar. 

I crept forward, as quietly as I could. I was determined that Carmilla should succeed with her plan, though could not fathom why it required a stop in our cellar. My coat dripped water upon the floor, and my breathing was a little loud from my exertion in the search, but neither my lady nor her rescuer seemed to hear me. 

“Carmilla, wait,” my lady said, as a footstep sounded on the creaky top stair—Carmilla was descending into the cellar. “The girl—have you seen her? Do you know where she is?” 

“I do,” said Carmilla, with undisguised delight in her voice. “What a time to ask. How marvelously clever you are, darling.” 

They had reached the base of the stairs. I knew that I could not follow the down the creaky steps undetected. I dropped to the floor, and lying upon my stomach, strained my neck to see through the gap above the top step. All was pitch dark, but a moment later, a match was struck, and a lantern lit, and the scene below was illuminated in harsh, flickering shadows. 

Our cellar was dusty, and smelled of must and moss. Some shelves against the walls were lined with old wines, upon which generations of spider webs had accumulated. The floor was cluttered with broken or disused furniture from the schloss; a table with a missing leg, an old vanity, even a bed, with a moth-eaten mattress still upon it. A brass chandelier lay upon the ground, its well-used candles of deformed wax splayed about upon the floor. All of these features were familiar to me, for I visited the cellar to procure wine on the rare occasions that we had company. However, there was one furnishing in the room which was startlingly new, and which drew my eye. 

A coffin lay in the midst of the clutter. It was pure white, so white that it practically glowed. Its sides were carved with the scene of a grand ball, and as the lamplight flickered and the shadows changed, the dancers there carved seemed to move. They were all young women, dressed in swishing gowns and long gloves, dancing with one another as a man with a woman. Some danced with fingers interlocked, others with their foreheads resting together, others held each other’s backs to dip and lift each other, and all were merry and delirious, with the exquisite agony of love upon their faces. 

My eyes were drawn from this fascinating mosaic by movement—a true movement, which could be no illusion of the light, and I realized with a shock of horror what I saw. Within the coffin, her mouth gagged and her hands tied, lay a real girl of flesh and blood. 

She was alive; her eyes were wide and terrified, and she writhed in her constraints. Her wrists strained against the cloth that bound them. 

She was clad only in a white under-dress, and it was indecent the way that it clung to her voluptuous figure, and strained under her frightened breathing. I would have averted my eyes, but I was utterly dumbstruck, for how could there be any doubt as to her identity? While we had been stumbling about leagues away, calling her name, here she was, bound and gagged in the cellar of my very own house. I could hear very distantly from the grounds, the searchers’ desperate calls of, “Miss Cerise?!” 

Carmilla had set my mistress down upon the moth-eaten mattress in order to light the lantern. It was only now that my bemused mistress caught sight of the girl in the coffin, and she slapped both hands to her mouth in a violent gasp. 

“Do not fear,” said Carmilla. I had to strain my ears to hear her over the patter of the rain. “She is gagged and cannot scream. The moment could not be better. The searchers will think only that you have gone missing in the storm.” Carmilla turned her back, and seemed to become momentarily busy with something upon the vanity table. 

My mistress gawked at the young girl, evidently far too nonplussed to speak, and the girl stared back with wide, terrified eyes. She made a little movement toward my lady, and an effort to speak through her gag, but of course her words were unintelligible. 

My lady reached forward, surely intending to free the girl’s mouth, but Carmilla raised a hand to stop her, not even turning from the vanity, as though she had already known exactly what my mistress would do. “Do not free her, Laura.” 

My lady looked to Carmilla, her hands still outstretched toward the girl. “Then you had better explain,” she snarled. 

“Yes, alright.” Carmilla turned around, and set down a sharpening blade on the vanity behind her. In her other hand, she held a stone knife, long and wickedly sharp, which she set upon the floor beside her as she crouched at my lady’s feet between the bed and the coffin. 

Her face lit with those beatific dimples, and she took both my lady’s hands in hers, and kissed them several times before speaking. “It is very simple, dearest. Allow me to explain.”


	8. Sacrifices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, the characters discuss violence and blood in this chapter! Take care, creampuffs.

“A simple exchange; your years for hers.” 

Carmilla spoke soothingly, caressing my mistress’ hands. “You have only to lie down beside her, intertwine your arms with hers, and I shall begin the process.” 

My lady started at her, stunned, and blinked several times before managing to speak. 

“But…but what will you do?” 

Carmilla reached up and tenderly brushed my lady’s wet hair from her neck. 

“I will bite you,” she said, “to infect you with my condition. If I bite with intent to make you one of my kind, and not to feed upon you, then your process of transformation will begin at once. But the process is painful, excruciating and torturous my darling, and in your current state you could not survive it. Your body is too old and ill.” 

“Then how--?” 

“I will spill the girl’s blood. As you lie intertwined with her in the coffin, her blood will rise and pool around you. It will fill your nose and mouth, and you will feel as though you were drowning. But do not fear; you will not drown. I will close the coffin upon you and guard this place as you transform. It may take some weeks, but you will not know time. You will feel torments; fevers, hallucinations, an agony in your chest that you will never forget.” 

As Carmilla described these horrors, not so much as a shadow of fear crossed my lady’s face. She looked into Carmilla’s eyes unblinking, simply listening to understand. Perhaps her lack of fear can be attributed to that odd unconditional trust that she seems always to have had in Carmilla, despite the fact that the fiend nearly murdered her in her adolescence. 

Carmilla was planning to murder another young woman, that much was clear. And I realized, with a horrible twist of my gut, that there could be no doubt as to who had killed Miss Cerise’s twin sister Collette. Carmilla had consumed the girl to maintain her own dark, parasitic existence. And now she would kill Miss Cerise to save my lady… 

I ought to have leapt upon them. I ought to have cried out and flung myself upon the fiend at that very moment, and it is with deepest shame that I confess to have hesitated. Because does not affection make us partial? Does not love, sometimes, make is immoral? I hesitated, sir, because there was hope in my heart that this devilish scheme would keep my lady from death. I hope that you will not think me wicked. Had you known my lady as I did, you might well have done the same. 

“When I open the lid of the coffin,” Carmilla went on, still caressing my lady’s hands, “I shall see you youthful as the spring, with your hair soft and golden again, even lovelier than once you were, lovelier than any mortal can be. You will be entwined with the corpse of an old woman, for the girl will take on your years as she dies, and as you take on hers. I will be waiting to lift you from the coffin and clutch you to my breast, to receive you as my eternal companion.” At these last words, Carmilla’s face broke again into that engaging and congenial smile. She watched my lady eagerly, anticipating a joyous reaction. She was proud as a schoolgirl who has just solved a difficult equation on the board, poorly concealing her desire for praise. 

My lady’s eyes closed and her expression became dark. For a split second, her brow contorted with a look of longing more deep and fierce than I have ever seen upon a mortal face. Such a longing must surely have ripped at her heart. But a moment later, the expression was gone, and she opened her eyes and pulled her hands from Carmilla’s. 

“You cannot mean this,” she said, her voice hard. Carmilla’s great dark eyes widened, and her lovely brows drew together with confusion. “But of course I mean it! I do not say ‘forever’ lightly, as a churlish young suitor, but with the greatest of--” 

“No, I mean that you cannot really mean to do this,” said my lady, interrupting her. She gestured at the bound girl in the coffin, who had ceased to struggle, and was watching Carmilla with wide, horrified eyes. 

“But of course I do!” cried Carmilla, still searching my lady’s face. “Do you doubt my intentions toward you?” 

“No!” My lady nearly yelled with frustration, and was immediately beset with a fit of coughing. Carmilla leapt up to help her lie down, but she slapped Carmilla’s hand away impatiently. She drew a deep, strained breath, her hands on her chest, and rasped out, “You must not attempt to do this, Carmilla, because the girl does not deserve to die.” 

_“Ahhh_ , I see.” The worry on Carmilla’s face smoothed into comprehension. “I had forgotten, in my haste, how you mortals view life and death. You do not understand time. You think that a lifetime is long, that there is some significance to a century, a decade, even a day.” Carmilla reached up and caressed my lady’s cheek. She surveyed my lady as you or I might survey an odd and beautiful flower that we had uncovered on a forest floor. “You will understand soon,” she said softly, with a terribly sweet melancholy, “how short and insignificant is a human life. This girl is like a candle, a pretty little light that will soon be extinguished, one way or another. What is the real difference between watching the candle burn to the ground, and blowing it out a little sooner? Hardly any difference at all. But the difference between mortality and immortality? Why, that is a real difference! And it is worth any price, any small sacrifice. You will understand, my darling, you will see!” 

The fiend’s excitement was returning. Rising, she kissed my lady hurriedly upon the forehead, and then strode to the vanity and lifted the stone knife. I found myself affected by the words she had spoken; a melancholy languor had crept into my limbs, and it was a moment before I could stir myself to move. But move I did, for my good sense and my gallantry were not altogether gone. 

Carmilla caught the bound girl’s red curls in her free hand, and tugged so that the girl’s head was forced back, her white throat exposed. As she raised the knife, and my lady shrieked, “Carmilla, _no_!” I staggered to my feet and descended into the cellar. 

My palms were sweaty and my knees very weak, and truly I felt close to fainting with fear when Carmilla rounded on me and froze, a sneer of shock and outrage on her mouth.


	9. The Touch of the Vampire

> "One sign of the vampire is the power of the hand. The slender hand of (Carmilla) closed like a vice of steel on the General's wrist when he raised the hatchet to strike. But its power is not confined to its grasp; it leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes, which is slowly, if ever, recovered from." - _Carmilla_ , by J. Sheridan LeFanu

To my immense relief, the knife slipped from Carmilla’s hand in her surprise. It clattered to the floor as Carmilla took a step toward me, suspicion written upon her face. “Who is he?” 

My lady had struggled to her feet, reaching desperately for the knife in Carmilla’s hand. “My servant, LeSalle,” she said, as she too turned to gawk at me with surprise. 

“What do you want?” Carmilla demanded of me. 

I found that I was rather tongue-tied. Her attention elicited in me a cold shudder, as though a great gust of wind had blown through me. 

“I-I think it wrong that the young woman should perish in this manner,” I stammered. I straightened my back and stuck my chest out a little. I was, after all, at least a foot taller than Carmilla. There was no sense in cowering like a child. 

“Oh, do you think so?” Carmilla said in a low voice. She took another light step toward me. “And it does not trouble you that your mistress is on the verge of death?” There was a challenge in her voice. I raised my gaze to meet her ferocious dark eyes. “Perhaps it troubles you to think that she might _escape_ death…what of that? Perhaps you cannot bear the thought of being without her in your afterlife? You are jealous that she should be with me.” 

“I-I do not know what you are insinuating…” 

She looked up at me, unblinking. “You are in love with her.” 

“I- _no_! I--” 

As though out of nowhere, the back of Carmilla’s hand smacked me across the face. The blow was so mighty that I stumbled backward and fell onto the stairs. My face stung as though I had been branded, and I was momentarily stunned with incredulity at the strength of her small hand. I lay crumpled with a supernatural weakness in my limbs, inexplicably unable to move as Carmilla advanced upon me again. 

All at once, from the coffin came a loud, piercing scream, serrated with terror; my lady had managed to remove Miss Cerise’s gag. The girl let loose her lungs with a shriek that quite expressed the horror of her ordeal. Carmilla spun around, leapt nimbly forward, and jabbed the girl’s neck with two slender fingers. The girl’s eyes rolled closed and she immediately slumped in the coffin, her head falling back. 

“Carmilla!” my lady cried, and as the fiend turned to look at her, my lady clutched those cruel, cold hands in her own. “You must leave!” 

“No! We are so close!” Carmilla exclaimed, a note of hysteria in her voice. 

In my dazed state, I heard a crash from above. Someone had thrown open the door to the schloss. Impassioned voices sounded in the entryway; evidently the searchers had heard Miss Cerise’s scream from within. 

“They will find us! Carmilla, they will hurt you. Please, go!” my lady implored. 

“I will kill them!” 

“No!” With some effort, my lady managed to grapple around Carmilla, clutching the fiend’s forearms. She inserted her tiny form between Carmilla and the coffin, blocking Carmilla’s path to the unconscious girl, and to myself on the stairs behind. “You must not harm anyone tonight. Listen to me; I will not transform!” 

Carmilla’s ferocious expression fell away, all at once. Her eyebrows contracted. “I…do not understand,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Do you not wish to be with me, Laura?” Her voice was vulnerable as a young bride’s. I saw, in the mirror behind her, my lady’s face; her eyes filled with tears. 

“I do,” my lady gasped. “Since you first pierced my breast…such a sharp pain, Carmilla, I have never recovered. When you came for me, I had no will to fight your depredation. Had the men who protected me not come between us, I would have been content simply to lie back and let you consume me. There are so many things I would do to be with you. But I will not do this.” 

Carmilla did not speak. She merely looked at my lady. And though I do not have much knowledge of the particularities of the vampire, I think that such a creature might look so after having unwittingly looked into the sun. The creature was stunned, pained, and unbearably moved for something long lost. 

For another moment they simply looked at each other.


	10. The Haunting of Carmilla Karnstein

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Thank you so much for reading. I'd love to get comments and talk with you about it :))

> “but curiosity is a restless and scrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another.” -J. Sheridan LeFanu, _Carmilla_

There was a bang from above; someone had thrown the cellar door open. 

The sound startled us all, and we turned to look as Mistress Boesch dashed down the cellar stairs. She was followed by a stream of some ten searchers, all wild-eyed and dripping wet. The servants, simple villagers, and clergymen alike froze to gape open-mouthed at the sight they had uncovered. There were many gasps and even a shriek; the scene must have looked like a piece of Gothic theatre. 

Sister Frances, who stood at the head of the group beside Mistress Boesch, at the sight of the coffin and the unconscious girl within, drew a wooden crucifix out of her habit and raised it up with a shaking hand. 

The gesture was, no doubt, intended to protect the party from what evil might lurk in the macabre scene. But the Sister had surely not anticipated Carmilla’s reaction to the sight of the cross. The fiend’s face contorted, and she shrank back as though she had been struck. The clever Sister, marking this reaction, fiercely raised the crucifix higher, her eyes wide with a sudden suspicion. 

Carmilla shielded her eyes with her forearm, and turned her back to avoid the sight. But she found the crucifix reflected back at her in the mirror behind, and her body jerked violently away from the image. She doubled-up with horrid shudders, and twisted like an earthworm trapped beneath a spade. 

“Carmilla! Go!” my lady shrieked. “ _Please!_ ” 

Carmilla vanished. Where she had been, a cloud of thick black smoke swirled and spread, and the smell of forest fire filled the cellar. The small windows at the top of the walls splintered and burst all at once. As we cried out in alarm, something streaked across the floor. It leaped upon a shelf and then launched through a shattered window out into the night. 

I saw the flash of a tail as it escaped; it was a black cat. 

My lady collapsed onto the floor. 

“She is gone,” she announced weakly to the room. “The danger is past.” It was only at this time that my head began to clear, and my body to strengthen from the lethargy that Carmilla’s blow had left in my bones. I swayed to my feet and hurried to my lady’s side, even as the others dashed forward to surround Miss Cerise. My lady propped herself to sitting, and let her head fall back to rest against the coffin. 

“Madam, are you hurt?” I asked urgently. 

“Oh, no,” said she, almost sleepily. “No, LeSalle, I am quite well.” She gave a deep, sad, satisfied sigh. 

“Cerise! Sweet God.” The wet and unkempt Mistress Boesch sank to her knees beside the coffin. She cupped the girl’s unconscious face in her hands, pressed her ear to her girl’s chest to listen for a heartbeat. “Alive!” she cried, to the excited exclamations of the other searchers gathered. “Oh, praise the good lord…” 

Mistress Boesch unwound a sopping wet scarf from around her neck, and unceremoniously smacked the young lady in the face with it. Miss Cerise started awake at once. She opened her mouth to let out another scream, only to freeze, dumbfounded, at the sight of Mistress Boesch kneeling beside her. Mistress Boesch burst into tears and threw her arms around the girl, and after a few stunned moments, the girl returned the embrace. She gaped over Mistress Boesch’s shoulder at the motley crowd assembled, and upon their assurances that she was, indeed, in no further danger, she wept with relief into Mistress Boesch’s shoulder for a spell, and then began fiercely to demand information about her captor. 

Her curiosity was insatiable. But Mistress Boesch, looking a little concerned, begged her to put thoughts of Carmilla Karnstein aside, and indeed to put all thoughts of her ordeal from her mind, until they had gotten her home and treated her for shock. In the end, Miss Cerise acquiesced. A sturdy woodsman lifted her from the coffin, and the local friar stepped forward from the center of the group. He spoke a benediction over them all, and then reached down to cup Miss Cerise’s teary face, and kissed her upon the forehead. 

* * *

As I write this letter, I am seated in the drawing room, at a writing desk beside a window that looks out across the grounds and toward the front gates of the schloss. 

Although Mistress Boesch urged me to seek work with her employers, now that the Hollis line has ended, I think that I will instead make use of my retirement pension and the generous sum that Mme. Hollis left me in her will. With these funds I can settle comfortably into my old age. 

My lady’s passing was gracious; the night after the storm, and these mad events that I have here outlined, she asked that I leave her bedside. I was loathe to do so, for she was exceedingly ill. But her request was clear, and with tears in her eyes, she thanked me for these good years that I had devoted to her care, and kissed me upon the cheek. 

As I closed her chamber door behind me, I caught sight of my own visage reflected in the mirror upon the opposite wall. I started a little at the sight, for upon my cheek there stood an urgent red form; the shape of a hand unnaturally clear upon my skin. It was the print left by Carmilla’s hand when she struck me. It had not faded in the hours since the blow, and it has not faded in the days since these events. I do not think that it will ever fade. 

And I recalled, looking upon myself, the words that the fiend had spoken in her jealous rage. And I thought that she had, perhaps, been correct. Perhaps, indeed, somewhere in these long years that I had served my mistress, I had fallen in love with her. Perhaps I had stood a fool, as cross-gartered as Shakespeare’s Malvolio. 

But I had a consolation which I thought upon as I tore my eyes away from the mark upon my face and set off down the hallway; my mistress had had only one true love affair in her life. And though it was not with me, I could take comfort in knowing that it not with Carmilla Karnstein either. No, the great love of my mistress’ life was her own conscience. 

I found my lady at rest the next morning, her face peaceful and her body cold with death. 

Last night, as I sat here writing by candlelight in the wee hours of the morning, I absently glanced up out of the window. I saw, by the light of the moon and stars, Carmilla standing upon the grounds. She was looking up toward the top floor of the schloss, perhaps at the dark window of my lady’s chamber. There was neither malice nor scheming upon her beautiful face. Indeed, the closest description that I can begin to give is that the fiend looked…haunted. But not by fright, as the word might imply to you or I. 

She gazed upon the schloss with her head cocked a little, and one hand upon her bloodless heart. She looked toward my lady’s chamber as a creature of the dark universe, who has seen and cannot forget an inexplicable flash of light. 

I sat awake for some time to watch her, but I think that I must have dozed off. For when my eyes opened to the dawn light that crept across the grounds, she was gone.


End file.
